Health briefs

Offering people money to lose weight seems to work better than other methods, particularly if they have to pay a penalty if they fail. Money encourages compliance, according to a trial of incentive dieting from the Mayo Clinic. Participants received $20 a month for losing weight but paid a $20 penalty if they failed.

A recent meeting of the American College of Cardiology was told those in the financial incentives group lost an average of 9.08 pounds (4.12 kilograms) in a year, while those without financial incentives lost 2.34 pounds over the same time.

More than 60 per cent of those in the incentive group remained in the study a year later compared with only 26 per cent of those not compensated.

Medical tattoos

Tattoo artists are moving into medical warnings, such as “do not resuscitate” on the chest or “diabetic” on the arm.

But is this of value? The Canadian Medical Association noted last year that no tattoo guidelines exist for paramedics. It said medical tattooing was increasing as an alternative to medical alert bracelets, which could be lost or not allowed at work.

In the MJA this week, a commentator identifies two forms of medical body art: alerts and advance directives.

While a bracelet is likely to be noticed, a tattoo could easily go unheeded in the hubbub of resuscitation.

A simple tattooed advance directive probably doesn’t carry legal weight alone. If followed with a lengthy indelible document detailing the directive, it may hold more weight.

Finding fractures

US Army radiologists have developed a new imaging protocol to find stress fractures in soldiers much earlier than traditional X-rays.

They use SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) which is usually reserved for imaging the heart and some glands. They use it with low-dose CT and say it helps to rank stress injuries by severity.

Soldiers injured in training are usually given an X-ray and returned to training if an injury is not visible. Missed stress injuries can progress only to be discovered later when they have become serious.

According to a report on MedImaging.net, the fusion of two forms of CT allows two-thirds more soldiers to return to training after rehabilitation, long before fractures would normally progress to career-ending injuries.

It provides a more anatomically-precise image allowing the pinpointing of the exact location of a stress change.

Anti-antibiotics

If antibiotic resistance is not better managed there may be a major health downturn. Swallowing an antibiotic, sitting back and waiting for it to work will be a thing of the past.

The increase in resistant organisms, coupled with a big fall in the number of new anti-microbial drugs coming onto the market “suggests an apocalyptic scenario may be looming”, warn experts in the British Medical Journal.

Their warning follows the UK’s Anti-microbial Resistance Strategy and Action Plan, reflecting the need for a clear change in policy.

Anti-microbials have become pivotal in safeguarding our health and are routinely given to surgical patients.

As a result, after hip replacement, only 0.5 to 2 per cent of patients become infected.

Without antibiotics, post-operative infection could be 40 to 50 per cent, with many fatalities.